Rail Forums

yes, i just saw that. That was like, 4 1/2 years ago? Surely these things ought to be done while the iron is hot, so to speak, and the evidence can be examined & so on. Makes no sense at all. Anyway, didn't the RAIB investigate it in the customary fashion? Why is this needed at all?

So what are they enquiring into? The RAIB did a very comprehensive report into the accident (as you would expect them to with an accident of this severity) and so I'm unsure as to what there is left to look into. As well as the fact that it was more than 4 years ago, why did it take this long to hold one!?

The cause of death, same as inquests normally do. Its nothing to do with the railway, apart from the crash being the cause. Not sure why its taken so long to start tho'.

The Mirror

The 2007 Grayrigg crash came after safety recommendations were made following the deaths of four people in the Hatfield crash in October 2000 caused by a broken rail, and the Potters Bar accident in May 2002, which killed seven people, again caused by faulty rail points.

Surely though the RAIB's report should be sufficent as they concluded that:

RAIB Report Paragraph 601 said:

The principal cause of the fatal injuries to Mrs Masson, who was travelling in vehicle one, and the injuries to other passengers and train crew was secondary impact, resulting from people and objects being thrown around the interior of the carriage. This resulted directly from the motions of the individual vehicles of the train following derailment. Amongst the exceptions were one passenger who was ejected from vehicle two, another who was found with part of her body protruding out of a broken window in vehicle one and other passengers who received minor grazes caused by broken glass during egress through
broken windows.

The delay will be due to the RAIB investigation, as that provides a detailed examination of the circumstances surrounding the death of the passenger. It should be something of a formality, the only decision to make is whether it is misadventure or something more serious, given the circumstances that led to the derailing of the train.

If there were fears of something more serious, leaving it 4 1/2 years would hardly seem to be the most efficient way of deciding that, would it? If the system really is this inefficient perhaps it might be useful to hold an inquiry into that.

Coroner's counts are quite overstretched and nothing's likely to be done about it in the current climate. This inquest will probably have been "queued" around about the time the RAIB report was published. It's taken this long to reach the front of that queue.

The inquest will officially document the cause of death and return a verdict. They are a legal requirement in all deaths outside of certain types of medical/hospital care. In cases like this they are little more than a formality, but in some cases they can lead to murder enquiries, health and safety prosecutions or civil action. They are an important (although rather neglected) part of our legal system.